Race silence: the oversignification of black men in “the crisis of/in masculinities” in post-apartheid South Africa

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Abstract

The “crisis in/of masculinity” is a concept now used
worldwide to draw attention to problems confronting
men, despite its American origin focused on
documenting the responses of men to changing work
and family structures. In the context of South Africa,
the concept has been further used, especially, in the
analysis of such social phenomena as gender-based
violence and unemployment. While this gendered lens
has offered useful insights it has also relied heavily on
a primary focus on the negative elements of masculine
attitudes and behaviours. Moreover, in the South African
context, the concentration on black men’s experiences
has given exaggerated emphasis to the destructive
and anti-social aspects of such experiences, which
have also been incorporated into both thin and thick
descriptions of a general construction of “black
masculinities”. The result, as this article shows with
regards to an analysis of certain South African research
on “black masculinities”, is that black men are held
responsible for social ills. The article examines debates
dealing with representations of “black masculinities” in South Africa and urges for more complex analyses of such masculinities. Such analyses
should take into account the nuanced ways in which both “hegemonic masculinities”
and “black masculinities” are constituted and contested.